Me: I gotta go. Mom said so.
Audrey: I’ll see you soon. I’d send you a selfie in my bra if you weren’t in church.
Me: I can leave …
Audrey: Why leave when you get to see the real thing in just a few hours?
Me: I never want to hear you say you can’t flirt again.
Audrey:
Me:
The choir begins a song, and I start to slide my phone back in my pocket when it lights up again. I glance down at the screen and chuckle.
Jasper: Who’s gonna tell Lora that Hartley might not be taken, but he’s taken?
Me: Not me. Might do him some good to get laid.
Jasper: It’s hard to watch.
Me: How is this any more important than me asking for gum?
Jasper: Because I don’t know the words to this song, and my hymnal isn’t in front of me.
Me: Fair.
I put my phone away before anyone can distract me again, or before I can start texting Audrey, which is what I want to do. She’s so unexpected. Her humor is sweetly hilarious, and the way she wrinkles her nose when she’s mad is adorable. I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to uncover about Dr. Van than I realize.
Mom pats my leg, and I glance over at her, but she’s not even looking at me. It’s as if she did it without thinking, out of habit. She loves that I’m here, both at church and in Sugar Creek, after having been gone for so long. I love being home, too, but I’d be able to enjoy it more if the circumstances were different.
I groan to myself, slinking back in the pew and waiting for the tension that I’m certain will stiffen my shoulders and tighten my stomach to set in. It happens without fail when my mind goesto fighting and the shit that’s happening that’s out of my control. The unanswered questions. The uncertain future. The theories I have about how this is happening to me—and why—will eat me alive if I let it.
A piece of gum slides over my shoulder. I grab it before it drops down my chest. Glancing over my shoulder, I get a small, knowing nod from Bobby, Hartley’s right-hand man.
“Thanks,” I whisper before facing the pulpit again.
I unwrap it as quietly as I can before popping it into my mouth. Still, the tension comes.
My shoulders tighten, and my jaw tenses as I chew my gum and try to listen to the sermon. I’m usually fairly good at paying attention. Then again, I’m usually not in this situation.
The only thing that niggles at the back of my brain about this whole thing is Audrey’s brother being Drew Van.Like … how?It honestly feels like the world is pulling a prank on me by sending me the woman of my dreams, even if I can’t have her, and then having her brother be the one person in the universe that I hate.
And I do hate him. I hate everything that rich, cocky motherfucker has ever said or done. From the moment we met at a fight camp and he said some offhanded, derogatory comment about my fight gear—that I wasn’t a concern because I’d be sent packing with my cheap shit—I’ve loathed him. He thinks he’s better than everyone, and that his pedigree should put him at the top just because.
Fuck that.
Maybe it’s a chip on my shoulder from always being the poor kid with the addict dad in the papers with a new mugshot, or maybe I’m just still pissed that in the fifth grade, I had a black eye and a kid in my class said I was the walking resemblance of my shirt since it had a hole in the hem. Either way, I’ve gotten more pleasure from beating Drew in the ring, getting signed tothe AFLC before him, and getting a title shot first than I have from nearly anything in my life.
Now, he’s Audrey’s brother.Not that it really matters when we’re just fucking around. Right?
I exhale, blowing a bubble but popping it quietly inside my mouth.
Still, I told her. I told Audrey there was bad blood there and let her decide whether she wanted to pursue anything with me. And maybe I shouldn’t have put her in the position of intervening on my behalf, but I did, and she accepted. She’s clearly intelligent and capable of making her own decisions, but I’m still slightly weird about it.
Maybe I should revisit this conversation one final time before we get to the rental.
The choir begins to sing again, and that’s my cue. I lean over to my mother, who’s awaiting my farewell.
